The present invention relates to a light-emitting device for external medical treatment with the aid of light, more specifically with the aid of light which palliates and/or cures different states of diseases.
Swedish Patent Specification No. 502 784 for example teaches apparatus for external medical treatment with the aid of light that includes a light-emitting device which is intended to be held against or close to the body of an individual, and drive means for the light-emitting device, which device includes light emitting diodes or corresponding elements and is intended to emit infrared light. According to the aforesaid patent specification, the means for driving the light-emitting device is designed to control said device to emit infrared light in a first stage over a first predetermined time period and then to emit visible light in a second stage over a second predetermined time period, wherein said drive means is designed to pulsate the infrared light and the visible light in accordance with a predetermined series of pulse frequencies.
It is also known to emit other monochromatic light for treating different states of diseases.
It has also been found that very good results can be obtained when treating a patient with solely one or more monochromatic light and with light other than infrared light, such as visible light of different colours emitted in accordance with a given pulse frequency.
It has been found that a device of the aforesaid kind can be used very successfully for treating many different states of diseases and injuries, for instance sport sustained injuries, stretched muscles, muscular pain, joint pain, headaches, various inflammatory conditions, various skin complaints, such as acne, back pains, etc., provided that the light is emitted in a certain way. In this regard, treatment with light has a favourable influence on injury healing processes and will palliate and/or cure various diseases.
There is thus an understanding that treatment with certain light that is emitted in certain frequency series will have a significantly greater effect in shortening the time taken to cure or palliate a disease.
One problem with devices of this kind known hitherto is that the person administering the treatment is required to oscillate the light-emitting device whilst holding the device against or in the close proximity of that region of the patient""s body to be treated. The reason for this is because the light emitting diodes disposed at the bottom of the light-emitting device have a certain geometric extension and are of different kinds, and hence two mutually adjacent light emitting diodes of mutually the same kind will be spaced at a certain distance apart. It is therefore necessary to move the light-emitting device forwards and backwards over the area to be treated, in order to ensure that the whole of said area will be irradiated uniformly to the best possible extent.
Because treatment of this kind will usually take from about two to ten minutes to carry out, administration of the treatment concerned may be very onerous to the person concerned.
This problem is solved by the invention.
Thus, the present invention relates to apparatus which is intended for external medical treatment with the aid of light and which includes a light emitting device that is intended to lie against or be held in the close proximity of the patient""s body, and drive means for said device, wherein the light-emitting device includes light emitting diodes or corresponding elements which are designed to emit monochromatic light, wherein the means that drives said device is adapted to control the light-emitting device to emit one or more types of monochromatic light over one or more predetermined time periods and to pulsate said emitted light in accordance with a predetermined pulse frequency or series of pulse frequencies over said time periods, and wherein the light-emitting device includes a casing and a light-emitting-diode supporting plate, said apparatus being characterised by an eccentric element which includes a first part that is fixed in relation to said casing and a second part which is connected to said plate; and by a spring means which functions to prevent rotation of the plate; and by an electric motor which functions to drive said eccentric element such as to cause said plate carrying said light emitting diodes to perform an oscillatory movement.